


but i’m a runner too (it’s killing me that i need you)

by spitzerspace



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff, it's not deep, run and tell that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 00:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spitzerspace/pseuds/spitzerspace
Summary: They’re runners who keep running into each other, running their mouths, and then running away.





	but i’m a runner too (it’s killing me that i need you)

**Author's Note:**

> OK, here’s the Real fluff i hope (writing this sentence prematurely, as per usual, so fingers crossed)
> 
> thought of this little thang this morning while listening to the song, but it’s not that related to the lyrics
> 
> there’s a post somewhere (which i can’t find rn) along the lines of ‘when the signs feel most motivated’ and i’m a leo so 😪😔
> 
> let’s make this short, sweet, & trope-ical, enjoy!

Josie’s heart pounds at double the rhythm of her feet meeting the ground. Her lungs are on fire and the heart rate monitor on her wrist tells her that she’s almost exceeding the safe range. She feels she probably couldn’t push herself any further, anyway. 

But then she sees her again and the monitor goes apeshit. 

She quickly slaps her wrist multiple times to shut it off but the beeping doesn’t stop. 

Penelope slows down, breathless, as she approaches Josie. 

“Is that thing alright?” Penelope exhales, trying to catch her breath. Her face looks more tanned than usual and small beads of sweat are dripping down her forehead and neck. The shirt that she’s wearing is slightly damp, showing the outline of the sports bra she’s wearing, not that Josie’s looking or anything. 

And it’s not really helping Josie’s heart rate situation. 

“Yeah, it just does this randomly sometimes,” Josie lies, continuing to tap it and subtly attempting to take deeper breaths to calm her perfusion, “I should probably get a new one.”

Penelope chuckles a bit and grins as the beeping finally stops, “Yeah, maybe, I think the whole neighbourhood just woke up because of that.” 

Josie blushes and crosses her arms over her chest, “Oh, shush, you,” she rolls her eyes. “Anyway, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a month.”

Penelope lifts a brow at that, crossing her own arms. “Aw, has someone been counting? That’s so sweet. But yeah, I went away on vacation for a bit, but now I’m back.” 

Josie shrugs and gives her a playful glare. “I guess I just missed your obnoxious presence, who knows, maybe I’m a bit of a masochist.” Penelope laughs at that, covering her mouth with her hand, and it endlessly puzzles Josie that someone so confident could be insecure about such a nice thing. “So, where’d you end up?”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Penelope wiggles her eyebrows. 

“Not happening,” Josie smiles.

Penelope snorts softly and shrugs. “See you next time then, Sarah!” she yells as she runs off. 

“Not even close!” Josie yells back, laughing, before going off to finish her lap. 

Josie didn’t know Penelope very well but running into her every week had become a nice norm. The first time they had met, Penelope had waved at her but Josie had been so engrossed in beating her previous lap record around the park that she’d completely missed it and ran right by her, only registering the action when she’d finished the run. Josie apologised the next time that they saw each other, which was at the same time the following week. Penelope had just laughed, saying it was fine, and introduced herself. To which Josie had said, “Oh, that’s nice, I’ll see you around,” shooting her a thumbs up and running away. It only occurred to her later that she hadn’t given her own name, and she probably seemed rude and awkward by running off, but then it became a little game of sorts. Every Saturday morning, they would inevitably cross paths on their individual runs, often not stopping, and Penelope would give her best shot at guessing Josie’s name. 

“Hey Jennifer!”

“Nope.”

“Tori?”

“Colder.”

“Julie?”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Penelope?”

“We don’t have the same name.” 

“Worth a shot.”

On occasion, they would ask each other about their personal lives but it never got very far before one of them would abruptly run away, mid-sentence. 

When Penelope hadn’t showed up that next week, and the following week, Josie had been worried that she’d stopped going on her morning runs. There was no way of finding Penelope, she had no personal information except her first name and the hint that she worked and lived nearby. Josie’s not even sure what she would do if she  _ had  _ searched and found Penelope’s social media or something similar. It seemed too weird to follow or message someone who you barely knew outside of brief passings once a week. 

She had just accepted that Penelope had given up on early morning exercises (something that Josie realised she had become excited for) and continued her own laps each week, slightly less enthusiastically. Though, she did try one day to see if Penelope had switched to Sunday runs, but she just ended up passing a group of men who stared a bit longer than comfortable, so she didn’t attempt that again. 

Now, Penelope was back and Josie was perhaps scared of losing her again. But she had no idea how to approach it, nor what she even wanted to come about from this. 

The week of Penelope’s return, Josie spent, unconsciously, forming a plan to do  _ something.  _ Whether that was asking her out, as friends or as a date, or just something along the lines of asking for her number, she really wasn’t sure. 

Her options ranged from bad pick up lines to just straight up asking Penelope out. She decides to try the first one out the next week. 

“Hey is that a phone in your pocket, or are you just-”

“No, it’s just my insulin monitor,” Penelope furrows her brows in confusion and pulls out the device from her pocket. “I have type 1, so I try to control my blood glucose by exercising.” She lifts up her shirt, showing the patch where the device connected to her abdomen. 

Josie feels like she’s currently being handed the biggest and most insensitive moron championship belt right now, and she hears a crowd cheering for her dumbassery, but it turns out to be her own heart rate monitor beeping loudly at her. 

“Oh- Shit, I- sorry, it was just something I read online, ignore me,” Josie sputters, trying to turn the incessant noise off. 

“It’s fine, Karen, you didn’t know. Which is partly my fault since I love running away when you ask me personal things,” Penelope smiles and shrugs. “But is your heart alright? That thing always seem to go off when you’re not even jogging.”

“Oh, um, yeah, I kind of have a high blood pressure issue, which is why I exercise too, to control it,” Josie ducks her head a bit and scratches the back of her neck, but it brings the beeping right next to her ear and she quickly pulls it away, crossing her arms. The sound finally stops as she manages to take deep breaths. 

Penelope nods and gives her an empathetic smile for a long moment, before a huge grin appears on her face.

“Well, you must be tired, because you’ve been running through my mind all week,” Penelope winks at her and runs off, shouting a “Bye, Josephine!” over her shoulder. 

Josie stands there in shock. Not only did Penelope  _ know _ that Josie was trying to somewhat (awfully) hit on her, but she had completely turned the tables and hit on Josie instead (even using one of the lines that Josie had considered). Also, Penelope had been  _ so _ close to her actual name that Josie had to do a double take for a second, thinking that she had legitimately deduced it. 

And the beeping starts again. 

// 

It’s been a month of Josie’s attempts of asking Penelope out but nothing has come out of it. 

She held off on the pick up lines for a bit, after last time’s fiasco, instead opting for subtle hints that she’s available all day and has nothing to do. 

That doesn’t work so she tries a (hopefully) safer pick up line a few weeks later. 

“What size shoe do you wear?” Josie asks her, accidentally cutting herself short as she forgets the rest of the line, trying to catch her breath. 

“I’m not sure, it varies between brands. Sometimes I’m a 6 but it can really range from like 5 to 7, or even 8, and that depends on whether we’re talking about women’s or men’s sizes, which is a total different debate on why that’s even necessary, they should really just normalise it across the board using centimetres or something, and don’t even get me started on the binary assumptions of shoes,” Penelope follows her trail of thoughts for a while and Josie just nods along, finally remembering her finishing line of  _ ‘because I think you could be my sole mate,’ _ but now is not the right time. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh. No reason, just curious,” Josie shrugs, trying to act casual, “I agree with all your points, though. The gender binary is harmful.” Josie shoots her a finger gun and quickly runs off, hearing Penelope’s laugh and a  _ ‘bye, Joanna’ _ behind her. 

//

Josie’s infatuation only grows each week and there’s no point in trying to hide it anymore (not that she’s doing a good job), she just really wants to ask Penelope out. 

The worst that could happen was that Penelope would feel awkward, reject her, and maybe change her running schedule. But Josie’s hoping to make Penelope feel comfortable enough in declining, as much as she can, so that they could possibly be friends if Penelope didn’t want anything more. 

“Morning, Jackinthebox!” Penelope beams at her, coming to a stop. 

“Seriously?” Josie deadpans. 

Penelope shrugs, “I’m making my way down the list.”

“I don’t know what website you’re on, but you might want to filter it out for human-sounding names,” Josie chuckles.

“Noted,” Penelope nods, serious, pretending to think hard about it. “And would knowing your shoe size help as well?” A shit-eating grin appears on her face. 

“Shut up,” Josie nudges her, not being able to help grinning herself. 

They keep up their banter, longer than they usually do, and it allows Josie to gather the courage to finally ask what’s been on her mind. 

“Hey, Penelope, on a serious note... I was wondering if you’d like to go for coffee sometime?” Josie asks, hopefulness lacing her words, “you don’t have to say yes, and it can be just as friends, if you want,” she quickly adds. 

“I’d love to, Josie,” Penelope smirks and Josie’s heart bursts with happiness.

“Great, I’ll give you my-” Josie suddenly registers something, “wait, how do you  _ know?!” _ Her mind tries to conjure up the most plausible scenario in which Penelope would have found out, but all she imagines is Penelope stalking her on social media and going through all her embarrassing high school posts (which reminds her that she really needs to delete those) and basically knowing everything about her. 

“I don’t know if you know this, I mean, you probably do, but you have your name on your band,” Penelope teases, lifting up her own wrist to indicate that she was talking about Josie’s heart rate monitor. Josie suddenly remembers that she wrote her name and number on it in Sharpie, in case she accidentally misplaced it, and her face turns red.

“You  _ knew _ this whole time?!” Josie exclaims. They’d played their little game for months and Penelope, presumably, had known it from the beginning. 

“I mean, I kind of like you, a lot,” Penelope shrugs, amusement all over her face. “How else was I supposed to keep you on your toes?” she laughs, covering her mouth with her hand.

And Josie’s furious (but she really isn’t) and gently but assertively pulls the hand away from her face, using it to pull Penelope in and stepping into her space. She leans down close to Penelope’s face and waits. Penelope’s eyes drop to Josie’s parted lips before she smiles, eyes crinkling, and moves in to close the distance. That’s exactly when Josie abruptly pulls away and absolutely legs it. 

“Read my  _ band _ if you want my number, asshole!” Josie yells behind her. 

“Oh, I’ve already memorised it,” Penelope shouts back, “I’m in it for the long run, baby!” 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> i just created one of those pussy cat things so if u would like to, you can pop in a prompt or anything u want really <https://curiouscat.me/spitzerspace> (twitter is same handle, tho i’m just talking to myself so there’s not much going on)
> 
> title is from [Runner by Cub Sport](https://youtu.be/0U6u7rY01Vo). if u’ve never heard it, please give the [album](https://open.spotify.com/album/1Sx23MziCsG194ibSs4Syb) an ear or two, it is… chef’s kiss (plus, we support gay australians in this house)
> 
> also thank u to everyone who recommended or linked my last work to others, i really really appreciate it. i’m not very active on social media so my outreach is arm’s length, so it was very nice, thanks :’)
> 
> Note: i don’t mean to use diabetes as some sort of humour point or anything like that, i really apologise if it comes off that way, let me know if it does (i know it’s only about 3 sentences, but the point is that everyone feels comfortable). i’ve just done a lot of research papers on it, so i understand it’s not a joke, but also it’s a common condition that anyone can have.
> 
> that’s all from me, hope you have a really nice day! :-) i’m gonna go binge the rollercoaster that is oitnb


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